Furidashi Game Design Academy (Nicholas Theisen)

Nicholas wonders whether, given the way the market works now, if it even makes sense to make a distinction between indie developers and major studios.

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I Don't See the Branches, I See the Leaves by Chris Zabriskie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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Round 2 with Masao Kobayashi, we finally talk about intention in game design and how various forces in video game production maybe cause you to make a game wholly different from the one you set out to. Also: Dynasty Warriors, and, seriously, if you want to help pay for Banana Whiplash...

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We discuss three primary tabletop games times--board games, pen and paper, and card games--as well as the major design distinctions between the three. Also: capitalism is... good?

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Lauryn and Nicholas continue on the theme of thinking of gameplay in narratological terms by looking at combat encounters as a microcosm of broader narrative structures. Also on the docket: what it feels like to be pumbled.

Tilda vs. The Widow - Into the Badlands

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Riffing on Sakurai Masahiro's recent video on the origins of Super Smash Bros., Lauryn and Nicholas discuss fighting games, accessibility, and how to innovate by responding and adapting to genre conventions rather than trying to wholly reinvent them.

Sakurai on Super Smash Bros.

Furidashi Ep. 11 on controls and accessibility

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In this episode Lauryn and Nicholas discuss the 2022 game Pentiment from Obsidian Entertainment. We look at how the game functions as a form of productive historical revisionism and how attention to historical circumstances works itself out in terms of game mechanics and systems. We also discuss the mystery plot structure and the many ways in which Pentiment subverts it.

Opening Music: "Sicut cervus" by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, performed by The Cambridge Singers

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This week Lauryn and Nicholas hand in the first draft of their MA thesis on Super Giant's Hades. Is the game anti-immersion? Or does it, by maintaining the pretense of anti-immersion, present an even more immersive experience? What even is immersion? Find out this week! Also starring: Bertolt Brecht and alienation effects!

Lauryn and Nicholas jack into their cyberdecks to hack the motherbrain of game design: the system! Also on the docket: the fate the two GMs.

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Lauryn and Nicholas discuss how in recent years mobile games have entered the cross platform mix, how mobile games have reinvigorated arcades, and the future of mobile gaming from companies like Niantic. Also on the docket: redefining RPGs.

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In this episode, we take a look at a visual novel from 2019, the incredibly prescient Eliza. We spend some time laying out the unique mechanics of a visual novel and how those reading mechanics parallel the counseling methods the game interrogates. We also spend quite a long time thinking about the way the game reflects the culture of tech and the imperative to understand the ethical and cultural ramifications of being at the bleeding edge of software development.

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Lauryn and Nicholas follow-up on Assassin's Creed and talk about why the Mario franchise succeeds in making wildly different kinds of games fall under one umbrella where other game franchises do not. Also starring: Sam & Max and the Nintendo Seal of Approval!

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We delve into what it means to make a game that is more about expression and evoking a mood than about making a finely tuned product. Also: four introverts walk into a podcast...

Chronicles of Tal'dun: The Remainder

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Second half of our conversation with Square Weasel Studio on aesthetics and storytelling, in which we discuss the odd disconnect between the games we play and the games we make and how disorienting yourself is creatively productive.

Square Weasel: https://twitter.com/remaindervn

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Lauryn and Nicholas take a page out of their current book project--quite literally--and discuss how you as a player develop through gameplay both in response to but also independent of the particular game in question. Also: Lauryn is a crow?

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In this episode, we consider how to make your game stand out from the others, the importance of a clear hook or appeal to the player, as well as how to translate the sense of innovation you might find more easily in solo projects back into larger, collaborative efforts.

Download the Sympathetic Memories demo for free on our Itch.io site: https://furidashipod.itch.io/sympathetic-memories

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In this episode we continue our discussion of AI, focusing on its potential within the games industry, as well as its pitfalls. We consider the labor issues involved and how, despite all the hype, the reality of the many things that fall under the AI umbrella is an incredibly murky one, touching on issues of copyright as well as the basic question of who AI is for and who is it being done to.

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Lauryn and Nicholas discuss gamification, why people think it works but in the long run ends up either being dissatisfying or luring players into tedious grinds. Also starring: Habitica and teaching a ten-year-old to multiply fractions.

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Lauryn and Nicholas look back on some of our and your favorite episodes, talk about what we think of them now, and announce big changes going forward! Thank you all for a great year and many more to come!

Ep. 6 - Hell is Other Games

Ep. 8 - There's No Such Thing as a JRPG

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Lauryn and Nicholas discuss the fundamental appeal of so-called 4X games (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate) and the pleasures of gameplay focused on control and management.

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In this episode, Lauryn and Nicholas pick up where they left off in discussing how Baldur's Gate 3 structures its skill check encounters. We look at how encounter design in video games generally seems to privilege a system of challenges and achievements where the player's subjective experience is either an afterthought or simply a second order effect. We consider what it might look like to center player subjectivity instead and create a narrative experience where both success and failure are equally valid forms of gameplay and where neither victory nor loss ever stand in the way of progression.

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In this Patreon episode we jump off last week's Wordle episode to think about what it means for a game to work its way into the daily rhythms of our lives, as augmentation, versus carving out a sequester moment in our lives, as simulation. We delve into the early history of PC games and their relationship to hobby gaming, in an effort to provide a loose genealogy of the single player experience that dominates thinking in game design.

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Lauryn and Nicholas discuss how the distinction between game and platform is not a hard and fast one with particular reference to Skyrim, Minecraft, and... Lego?

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Lauryn and Nicholas return to the MDA (Mechanics, Dynamics, Aesthetics) framework to show how it was of a particular time and describes a game production process that may not be as useful in the current era.

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Lauryn and Nicholas go in depth with some of their favorite levels, past and present, to explore how level design can be used as a tool to show you the underlying systems in a game that normally stay hidden.

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Lauryn schools Nicholas about the several methods games use to convey narrative content, and no... we're not just talking cutscenes.

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Lauryn and Nicholas explain why AAA game studios operate the way they do and why the market as a whole causes them to gravitate toward producing franchises and otherwise very similar games.

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Lauryn and Nicholas discuss how randomness and procedural generation are used in game design to elicit excitement and, at times, anxiety. Also: don't do drugs?

Our episode on Disco Elysium

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Following up on previous discussions concerning the relationship between subjectivity and gameplay, Lauryn and Nicholas look at combat not from the perspective of mechanics and systems but more holistically, through the encounter.

Episode 53: Character and Social Class in Dishonored

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Lauryn and Nicholas wax melancholic while talking about MMOs and the accidental invention of seemingly undefinable social relationships in online gaming.

Setting aside the endless talk of systems and mechanics, Lauryn and Nicholas discuss what story in games looks like and the ways in which it differs from other media, such as film or literature.

Furidashi Youtube Channel

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What started out as an easy recording about our mutual love of Final Fantasy XIV turned into an extensive meditation on narrative wrapped systems and the importance of having clear narrative through lines between expansions of long-running games.

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Lauryn and Nicholas begin a series of discussions concerning tabletop game design by delving into the ethical implications of one of the oldest systems in the millennia-long history of playing games: taking turns. Also on the docket: new haircuts?

Our Patreon episode on turns and games mechanics

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In this episode, we talk about the concept of contiguity in worldbuilding and in game design more generally. We focus on longstanding franchises like Assassin’s Creed and Final Fantasy to look at how game worlds retain a clear sense of identity, despite evolving over time and in some cases even branching out into other media. You could call it vibes-based game design, but it is also a call to the importance of consistent collaboration within large design teams.

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In this continuation episode from their previous discussion on MMO history and design, Lauryn and Nicholas delve into applications of player psychology research as embodied in Bartle's taxonomy of player types and VandenBerghe's "Big 5." All that and a lengthy digression on social dynamics in Japanese education and localization!

Returning champion Masao Kobayashi sits down with Lauryn and Nicholas to talk video game production and demystify the whole process from the perspective of a longtime producer in both AAA and indie studios. Also on the docket: if any VCs out there want to help make Banana Whiplash...

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In this episode we deconstruct the concept of auteur theory and show how even when a game's production has a strong creative direction, often that means getting people to buy into that vision and contributing to it rather than having their work dictated to them. We talk about the documentary Hideo Kojima: Connecting Worlds and how it reveals the ways in which solodev and team development are not as different as you might think.

Download the Sympathetic Memories demo for free on our Itch.io site: https://furidashipod.itch.io/sympathetic-memories

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Lauryn and Nicholas look at the early history of RPGs and role-playing game design to talk about why the distinction between "Western" and "Japanese" RPGs is more fluid than you may think. Also starring: the "golden age" of 80s PC RPG and adventure games.

Normally, we go off on our little tangents to some relaxing beats, but this week Lauryn really had to get something off her chest. On the docket: why Google Stadia's recently announced revenue sharing model is indicative of so many problems in contemporary game design.

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Lauryn and Nicholas talk about the question of accessibility in games and how our physical nature (and the variance therein) contributes to our preconceptions about what game controls should or should not be. Also starring: Joust and epigenetics!

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Nicholas takes an uneasy walk through his own feels to discuss Oink Games' Takeshi and Hiroshi. Also on the docket: how games can improve players, so players can improve gamedevs, and hapless level designer becomes more than human.

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Lauryn and Nicholas look at the evolution of Unreal Engine from an ordinary development kit to the basis for a wide range of media production as well as the broader ramifications of film and video game production bleeding into each other. Also on the docket: The Matrix Awakens and the uncanny valley.

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Lauryn and Nicholas address the difficult problem of how to design games that make you feel for and understand characters without completely alienating the player.

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Lauryn's choice matrix returns for an in depth discussion of how gamedev's make choices about what affordances to give to players and how. Also: JUMP!

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Nicholas interrogates Lauryn about the various stages of the video game production process, and together they try to figure out ways to get past doing things the way they've always been done, which only serves to exclude certain voices.

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Lauryn and Nicholas take a look at the MDA Framework for game design, how it envisions games as "artifacts," and how it structures the design process as a discrete series of movements from mechanics to systems to player experience.

MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research

Episode 3: Gaming Player Psychology (re: Jason VandenBerghe)

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Russ Perkins joins Lauryn and Nicholas to talk uncommon careers in gamedev, cocktail arcade cabinets, and the importance of celebrating in your peers' success. Also: the delightful peculiarities of Firewatch and how Russ is just like a pineapple pizza.

Joygasm Podcast

Russ's portfolio

https://twitter.com/Russell_Perkins

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Nicholas coming back from hiatus with a solo pod on Iris and the Giant and how it uses procedurally generated levels as an allegory for personal suffering. Also starring the most trivial Returnal spoilers imaginable.

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In this special Christmas episode, Lauryn and Nicholas talk Cyberpunk 2077 and the importance or oddness of the holiday season when it comes to video game releases. Also on the docket: Christmas in Japan and why it may or may not be better than Christmas everywhere else.

In this episode, we begin our course on character and identity with an exploration of the "paper doll" concept in roleplaying games and its relevance for how games construe player choice as a means to flesh out who our avatars are in game.

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Our holiday episode! Lauryn and Nicholas talk about what makes a game warm and cozy, so that you can avoid dealing with your family this holiday season!

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Lauryn and Nicholas take a look at being a game master/DM and what lessons it holds for how to understand a game designer's relationship between what they do and the kinds of players they're trying to cultivate. Also on the docket: not killing your players' characters.

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This month we tackle the concept of friction in game design, how it's not necessarily the same thing as challenge or difficulty, and why it's important for making even the tiny little things you do in a game an engaging experience.

Download the Sympathetic Memories demo for free on our Itch.io site: https://furidashipod.itch.io/sympathetic-memories

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Once Lauryn dreamed of making her sleeper hit UnderBlind, but now she languishes in the deep, dark halls of AAA development despair. Also on the docket: the legal veil between major studios and indie devs.

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Riffing on the dichotomy between dev driven game design and player driven design, Lauryn and Nicholas discuss the particulars of plotting game narratives and making them work with video game mechanics and systems.

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Lauryn explains the "three C's" of game design.

For more on this topic and to unlock our other Patreon episodes, go to https://www.patreon.com/furidashi 

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Lauryn and Nicholas follow up their gamification episode with a deep dive into how games evolved into doing loot grinds and the games that give some hope that we're moving away from that. Also starring: Halloween in Animal Crossing and why Nicholas wants to conquer the world.

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Hear how the sausage gets made! Or not made! Lauryn and Nicholas talk a bit about their personal backgrounds, how they go about making the podcast, and how the episodes try to model a particular way of thinking about game design.

Ep. 10 - Free to Role Play

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In this episode Lauryn and Nicholas tackle how game designers translate their own interests and influences into tangible elements in their own games. Working from Nicholas' ongoing work on Sympathetic Memories, we first examine the way historical and literary influences work their way in. Then, we round out the episode by exploring how solo work of this kind can inform the way inspiration works in larger, more collaborative games.

Download the Sympathetic Memories demo for free on our Itch.io site: https://furidashipod.itch.io/sympathetic-memories

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In this episode we focus on where ideas come from, how they develop out of our experiences and interests, and how they ultimately coalesce into specific pillars and themes for a game. We also discuss what it means for these pillars to be in tension with one another, and how that can play out both in terms of a game's narrative as well as its mechanics.

Download the Le Concours des Filles (soon to be Sympathetic Memories) demo for free on our Itch.io site: https://furidashipod.itch.io/le-concours-des-filles

Substack: https://gamedesigndiscourse.substack.com/

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We invite Lauryn on as a special guest to talk about the fundamentals of level design, in particular, the "why" underlying a particular map or zone. Also starring: hapless level designer and hapless level designer's boss.

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Lauryn and Nicholas deconstruct the arbitrary distinction between mechanics and gameplay to examine what a player centric conception of mechanics would look like.

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Just a brief check-in during our hiatus month to give you a taste of what we'll be talking about in the coming year.

Our gift to our Patreon subscribers this holiday season: a chill playthrough of the first book in the Choose Your Own Adventure series! Join Lauryn and Nicholas as they make bad choices and critique the game's UI design!

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We do a deep dive into 2021's Loop Hero to talk about what games look like when they're less focused on combat and action and more on planning and control. What kinds of narratives emerge when you're not being force fed a story?

Chillrant 11: A Critique of the Core Gameplay Loop

The Core Game Design Loop

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The best combo-breaker in the gamedev podcast scene, Lauryn and Nicholas, discuss that interplay of mechanics we all the "action economy" and ask the most important question: do you even read, bro?

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In this episode, we discuss the popular browser game, Wordle, which was a worldwide phenomenon and yet somehow escaped notice when it came time to list the best games of 2022. We also discuss the way some video games work their way into the daily and weekly rhythms of our lives and why those games often find themselves on the outside or on the fringes of what gets to properly be called a video game. Whether you’re a Wordle master or merely a dabbler, we think this fun little game has a lot to say about how we integrate games into our social lives.

UX Collective Post on Designing for "Non-Players"

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Following up on their interview with Russ Perkins, Lauryn and Nicholas psychoanalyze each other by going back into their pasts, thinking about their most formative game experiences, what kinds critical perspectives they have as a result. Also on the docket: Even. More. FFXIV. Talk.

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Lauryn and Nicholas get into the weeds about how progression and narrative systems both overlap and are distinct from one another.

67. Adventures in Management: Backpack Hero

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Lauryn and Nicholas continue from the free episode's conversation to critique the distinction between hard and soft world building in game narrative, how to avoid common pitfalls, and how to properly address the subjective feel of a game.

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Lauryn and Nicholas talk about how moral choices in games are as much about the total framework in which those choices appear as what the content of the individual choice is.

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In this first episode Lauryn and Nicholas discuss 2007's Bioshock, ludonarrative dissonance, and what it means to make choices in games with real moral consequence. All this, as the world seems to be falling apart around us.

Nicholas explains what the core gameplay loop is, why it's so fundamental in game design, but also why it doesn't quite reflect what the player experiences in game. Also on the docket: dire bat wing stew.

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Lauryn and Nicholas talk about the concept of "video game logic" as it appears in Sakurazaka Hiroshi's All You Need is Kill and the 2014 film Edge of Tomorrow. Also on the docket: how the design of a game requires you as the player to "plug into it."

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Lauryn and Nicholas continue their conversation about character choice in RPGs and why total freedom of character choice can often feel unsatisfying.

No solo rant this week--Lauryn joins Nicholas to talk about the person the games industry made her and how that conflicts with the person the games industry should need her to be. Also on the docket: Ghost of Tsushima and finding the human element.

Last year Lauryn and Nicholas went through a year in Furidashi and as part of that recorded a behind the scenes for their Patreon subscribers. We're unlocking that episode now for all to enjoy!

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Lauryn and Nicholas dive into why virtual reality gaming seems to keep tripping over itself, how the body does and does not function as a "controller," and why we need to look more broadly to understand the efficacy of simulated experiences.

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Lauren explains why the theory of characterization underlying Call of Duty is the same as the Twilight novels, and Nicholas explains why it's hard to remain critical when you're emotionally attached to thing you criticize.

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This month we stop talking around the fact that the games industry is imploding and tackle it head on. We address the collective psychic damage we all seem to be suffering as a result, as well as how not to despair in dark times. In the end, we need to protect the creative parts of ourselves from those who only want to profit from our talents at any cost.

Download the Sympathetic Memories demo for free on our Itch.io site: https://furidashipod.itch.io/sympathetic-memories

Substack: https://gamedesigndiscourse.substack.com/

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Lauryn and Nicholas dive into their not game of the year, because that concept is silly, but rather the game they both feel really pushed for the possibilities for narrative and narrative systems design: Half Mermaid's Immortality. Also on the docket: why it's good sometimes for a game to make you queasy.

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Nicholas waxes nostalgic over the X-wing and TIE Fighter games as a way to get into the question of granularity in gameplay.

Lauryn and Nicholas try to explain the how's and why's of video game production in terms of auteur theory, where, despite being made by an army of gamedevs, the games themselves seem to have an "authorial" vision.

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Lauryn and Nicholas address the occasional overlap between narrative and progression systems but also get into the weeds about what make them distinct from both a gameplay and backend perspective.

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Lauryn and Nicholas have a long think about what makes the 3rd person camera not quite work in Baldur's Gate 3, why it does work in Hades, and third person perspective mix roleplaying and tactical gameplay elements. Also starring: hapless level designer's cool best friend and many many sighs.

Lauryn and Nicholas discuss a recent Game Maker's Toolkit video on "invisible choices" and try to analyze the many axes of how choices are implemented in video game design. Also: Furidashi After Dark.

GMTK episode on "invisible choices"

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In this episode, we discuss Kingdom Hearts 2 from 2005. We contextualize it in terms of the transformation of AAA games taking place in the 2000s, how the game functions like a theme park… because Disney… how that theme park design presents the concept of a multiverse for a younger player demographic, and how the allegorical structure of the game creates a layered experience in terms of gameplay, narrative, and character development.

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Lauryn and Nicholas take a deep dive into Persona 5 Strikers and discuss what happens as games branch out from their original designs and the problems that crop up once they cross platforms. Also starring: egg tarts and hapless level designer gets a promotion!

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We consider what makes game systems distinct from game mechanics and how the two interact with each other to form the basis of a game's ruleset.

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In this episode, we ask an admittedly clickbaity question that, nevertheless, raises some points: is Diablo 4 an RPG? We cover a bit of the history of roleplaying games, the awkward transition from tabletop to video games, and how character progression maps onto–or, in some cases, fails to map onto the player’s evolving gameplay experience. All of that to explain why maybe we need to rethink RPG as a game genre.

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Lauryn and Nicholas begin from the recent suit against Activision Blizzard and go on to discuss the rampant issues surrounding harassment in the video games industry and how to be a better ally to those who suffer within it. Also on the docket: Alanah Pearce on why boycotts aren't always a great idea.

Pearce's video: https://youtu.be/ApDnEuUOzS8

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With the recent news of Cyberpunk 2077 being delayed yet again, Lauryn and Nicholas talk crunch, burnout, and how to begin to deal with the chronic labor issues that plague the video game industry. Also discussed: hapless level designers and how you actually build diversity.

Lauryn and Nicholas discuss the similarities and differences between narrative and progression systems as well as how games have in recent years moved away from the "narrative wrapper" to make storytelling a more fully integrated game function.

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Relax to some chill beats, while Nicholas regales you with how Jane Austen's Persuasion is just like Silent Hill 2 and why Baldur's Gate 3 seems to be two kinds of game fighting against each other. Also on the docket: smooth voiced narrators and talking brains.

Lauryn and Nicholas talk about how mobile games should no longer be thought of as peripheral to the games industry but rather central, and how old video game design ideas are re-emerging as a result. Also starring: 80 MILLION ACTIVE USERS!!

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Lauryn and Nicholas try to explain the how's and why's of video game production in terms of auteur theory, where, despite being made by an army of gamedevs, the games themselves seem to have an "authorial" vision.

Unlock the full episode for $5 a month on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/furidashi

Twitter: https://twitter.com/furidashipod

Lauryn: https://twitter.com/thelaurynash

Nicholas: https://twitter.com/uahsenaa

In this episode, we delve into Final Fantasy 16 and the recent trend in Final Fantasy games towards more action oriented gameplay. But rather than make all the same tired comparisons others have already made to Devil May Cry or Game of Thrones, we focus on the clear evolution Final Fantasy games have undergone, and how this seemingly recent development has, in fact, been a long time coming.

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Lauryn and Nicholas continue their discussion of "management" style mechanics and how gameplay normally associated with strategy games can enhance more "adventure" oriented ones, with specific refence to the recent indie game Backpack Hero.

Episode where we critique ludonarrative harmony/dissonance

Our behind-the-scenes Patreon episode

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Nicholas tries to help Lauryn exorcise all those academic demons that still haunt her brain, as they look back on her thesis project re: ludonarrative harmony and try to reconceptualize it based on what they've learned over Furidashi's two years of existence.

Clint Hocking on "Ludonarrative Dissonance"

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In this episode we make a deep dive into Kon Satoshi's 2003 Christmas romp (?), Tokyo Godfathers. We focus especially on the dramatic tension between what characters imagine themselves to be and the reality of who they are--and how, sometimes, reality has a weird habit of slipping into fantasy.

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Lauryn and Nicholas talk about how life maps onto role playing games and how, perversely, role playing games map onto life. Also starring: Japanese web dramas and Fortnite?

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